Kevin Croppo's Journey at ATEC

When I first joined, ATEC was a much smaller company, in a much smaller footprint for a building. We had, at that time, four employees. It was Mr. Berg, Mrs. Berg, Anne Ramsey, and Kate Ryan. Anne and Kate were in the accounting department, Mr. and Mrs. Berg handled sales and marketing, and then they brought me on in the shipping and receiving department initially. That was something that I did for a few weeks and then Mr. Berg, knowing that I had an electronics background, felt like I served the company better in the lab. So that's where I went, to calibrate, maintain, and repair the test equipment.

Well, you know, it's a funny story. I'm not a particularly outgoing person, so when Mr. Berg gave me the opportunity to start to interface with customers, I didn't really know what I was supposed to do. I didn't really think I had anything to offer.

He had the wisdom to call me and say; “I've got an engineer out on the East Coast that needs an amplifier. You need to call this person and help them get that from us.” With his help, it became a really easy transition into the sales and rental process.

He knew that I had technical background. He knew that I could add something to the conversation that a regular rental agent wouldn't be able to do. So, it sort of made it an easy way for me to get into that part of the business.

The constant has been the importance of the relationship with the customer. That's been something that I've always believed in: the idea of making a friend first and a customer second. Build rapport so the customer doesn't feel like you're reaching for their wallet as soon as you say hello.

We're located in San Diego and that gives us an opportunity to support the local military, and they oftentimes come to us with a very immediate requirement. One that comes to mind is, a few years ago, there was a combat ship, a new deployment of a new style of combat ship, and they were running behind on the deployment schedule. The ship was supposed to actually leave port imminently and one of their power supplies on board had stopped working. It was on a Friday afternoon around four o'clock when they called us to let us know there's an urgent need for a rental of a replacement power supply.

Friday at four o'clock in the afternoon is not a time when most customers would expect to get a meaningful response from a company. Usually, they'd expect to get a voice recording saying, “we're closed for the weekend, try us again on Monday.” 

I was still here in the office and most of the company was still active and at work. We proposed a solution and we got the rental delivered. The commanding officer of the ship was so impressed and grateful that he sent us a letter stating that and also sent us a Navy medallion as a keepsake. It was really, really fun and gratifying to be a part of the deployment and help the deployment stay on schedule.

We've had people here that moved on to larger companies and talking to them later, I got the impression that they felt like they had gone from being a recognized person to being a number at a larger company. ATEC has always engendered an entrepreneurial spirit in the individuals that work here and that's been especially true for the rental agents.

ATEC has always said, create your own marketplace out there. That's really exciting and it allows a person like myself, who maybe never had the moxie to go and start my own company, to feel like I'm doing that within the auspices and the support of a company that already exists.

When a customer calls in, the company wants us to always be a consultant, be an advocate for the best solution possible that's agnostic about what the actual manufacturer of the equipment is. The mandate for rental agents has always been, “look, we're going to carry equipment from a variety of manufacturers in our rental inventory. Your job is to pick the manufacturer that is best suited for what the engineer needs and what the actual application is calling for.”

My sensibility is that, ironically, humans crave a more and more real-time conversational response with a person: not with an AI agent, not with someone who just sent an email as a response or a text, but a real conversation. That just opens up so many more channels of communication. Having someone on the phone, you can hear the urgency in their voice. They can hear the authenticity in what you're proposing.

I've always believed that involvement precedes interest. And what I mean by that is, somebody might come into a career here at Advanced Test Equipment just because they wanted a paycheck every two weeks. But going beyond that, if you can endeavor to get to know your customers and create friendships out there in the industry, then the prospect of helping them becomes more meaningful and real, and it transcends just the paycheck. So that when you talk to them, you really feel like you're helping a friend out. And when anyone's helping one of their friends, they're never looking at their watch while they're doing that.

I'm assuming that I'm going to be finding out who I am when that happens. This job, if you want to do it well, and that's been important to me, takes everything that you can give it. For 36 years, that's kind of been who I've been. But I've had this growing awareness that there might be something else in the world worth pursuing or finding out about. I also play a lot of tennis, and it'll be great to devote even more time to that.

So that has sort of been an organizing principle for me all these years, and I guess I'll miss that. When I'm not here anymore, I'll probably be intrigued by how ATEC continues to do it while I'm gone.

Oh, one of gratitude. It has been really humbling and gratifying to be part of their challenge and to support that. My main ambition has been to help our customers move the world forward. And I know that sounds really grand and hyperbolic, but I truly believe that the innovative engineers and the companies they work for are the most positive agents of change available to us in this dynamic world. We need engineers to come up with solutions to the challenging problems that we're presented with.

And, well, the other thing that I believe is that they need our help to do that. I'm grateful to my customers and I'm humbled by their willingness to give me the opportunity to help them. And I would say that ATEC's going to continue doing that long after I'm gone.

I'm so impressed with what they're able to do for us and for our customers. We've got so many young people that we've brought on board that take ownership over challenges, that go the extra mile to get things done and increase our capabilities to support customers in new ways. So yeah, that's one of the really exciting things.

I need to acknowledge the owners of the company, Jim and Jill Berg, the whole Berg family, for their great support all these years, the opportunity that they've given me, and the inspiration that Mr. Berg has provided.

Thank you.